Catastrophe In Attawapiskat

This has relevance to my Native Housing blog on so many levels.

Watching the National news I was appalled seeing the living conditions at Attawapiskat Reservation this is unacceptable and I feel for my fellow Natives in the north. As a child my father and I traveled to many reservations in northern Ontario visiting family and friends and I've never seen it this bad. I can recall walking down a gravel road to the lake to swim, using an outhouse, going to the well to get a pail of water, we all bunked up usually 4 children on a large bed, the house was well insulated plus no matter what there was food on the table. Now this was many years ago and you would think living conditions on the Rez have improved, later as an adult when I drove to visit my father’s grave at Pickerel River Reserve I was impressed on the improvements in housing, that goes the same for Parry Island Reserve. All this makes me wonder what happened at Attawapiskat how did they fall through the cracks and be left to their own devices? There's finger pointing towards the Gov’t for not helping enough then there's accusations of corruption & mismanagement of Gov’t funds in the Attawapiskat Band office. From what I’ve read there will be an audit/investigation and rightly so…somebody has to be accountable for this mess. I’m agnostic but if you do believe then say a prayer for the people of Attawapiskat especially for the little children and the elderly. :(

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